Customers demand more of the products and services they use than ever before. They insist that the companies they deal with provide them greater levels of access and information. One of the methods of providing this increased information and access has been through the mobile telephone channel. Mobile services, enabled through slimmed down interfaces, have proliferated. Customers can receive alerts over a mobile channel, they can check the minutes left on their mobile voice plan, and through pre-set shorthand access numbers vote for their favorite contestant on a reality show.
Mobile banking is in its infancy. Customers have very limited access to their account information. One of the reasons for this limited access is a perceived lack of security over a mobile channel. In a bank branch, a person's identity can be visually verified. Over a web channel, they are required to authenticate themselves. However, on the mobile channel financial institutions are forced to operate through the Simple Message System (SMS) or through a very limited interface (both in screen resolution and in the throughput of the data channel) that provides little or no authentication facility.